'300' was always bound to provoke strong reactions, but the stratospheric praise on this newspaper ad (appropriately bellowed in ALL CAPS) would surely leave even the film's director asking if it was actually his film the reviewers had seen.
"5 STARS. AWESOME... ONE OF THE BEST FILMS YOU'LL SEE THIS YEAR." Zoo Weekly“Best movie of the last decade”? “The most unique moviegoing experience of a generation”? Come on. Maybe I’ll be DINING ON HUMBLE PIE IN HELL come next year’s Oscars, but I don’t think so.
"THE MOST UNIQUE MOVIEGOING EXPERIENCE OF A GENERATION... BREATHTAKING, POWERFUL, INCREDIBLE." Ben Lyons, E!
"300 PERCENT ACTION, 300 PERCENT EXHILARATING. IT'S THE BEST MOVIE OF THE LAST DECADE." Robert Sanchez, IESB.net
Actually, thinking about it, the tone of these mini-reviews works far better as a review for the film than the words themselves. It’s full bore, ramped way up to 11 (possibly 12), and completely, insanely, over the top. Unflinching, uncompromising, it stares you dead in the eye and DARES you to say otherwise!
I take it back; they’re perfect. :)
UPDATE: You’d think once the promotions department at Warner Brothers landed the accolade, “Best movie of the last decade,” they would have called it a day and gone home. But no, they continued to scour the land, searching for further words of praise with which to laud their mighty king.
Sadly for them, the best they could dig up was the oddly-expressed opinion of serial fawn, Molly Meldrum, who declared the movie:
“BLEW ME AWAY IN VISUALS...”Look, even if Molly Meldrum’s opinion was something worth having in your advertisement, must he make reference to being blown away? Can he give it a rest just once? Glory be.
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WARNING: this sentence ends in an exclamation mark!
ReplyDeleteLooks like the game being played here is to cast the net wide enough, trusting that somewhere among the flotsam and jetsam there are some low-grade reviewers desperate enough to sell their soul in the name of overstatement.
The quality of output of one of the film's referees, Robert Sanchez of IESB.net, can be gauged by checking out his interview with 300's director. Can't see him filling a role on The Movie Show just yet.
Ha. Thanks for tracking the link, Phil. Hilarious. You've got to love any movie review that says, "[The director] is the fuckin' man." I can't believed they passed on that one for the poster!
ReplyDeleteI remember CK once showing me a DVD whose one line review on the cover was from IMDB.com; the ridiculous thing of course being that any Joe Nobody can post a review to IMDb. In fact, the guy from the studio's promotional department could simply have posted his own glowing review on the IMDb and then quoted himself. And why not? Not like he's doing anything illegal, and Species 2 really was "the most highly anticipated sci-fi film since Star Wars." John Johnson, IMDb.com